It's Not About the Destination
by lazyiguana
Summary: ...But the Sheep You Meet Along the Way. The Winter Soldier is being stalked. By a sheep. Part of the I Am Not Iron Man 'verse.


**Marvel belongs to Marvel.**

 **Technically part of I Am Not Iron Man, but can be read as a standalone.**

The Winter Soldier wasn't quite sure when it started. Interest in the Middle East had been stirred, and so the Soldier had been deployed several times—the Soldier never could remember what the missions had been, but that was typical. _Enough detail retention to pass for local, but with no retention of mission details_ , one of the men operating the Chair had told the superior officer proudly only a week ago. The Soldier knew that that memory would disappear too in the next wipe, but this would remain.

The sheep.

It had showed up the first time the Soldier had passed through the region, heading towards _[-]_ , to _[-]_. The Soldier didn't remember why. The Soldier wasn't too bothered by why.

The Soldier was bothered by the sheep.

The Soldier couldn't remember exactly what the Soldier had done in the past, but the Soldier knew that as an asset, the Soldier was highly capable of infiltration, exfiltration, assassination, and whatever the mission might require. The Soldier was a terrifying symbol used to strike fear into the hearts of capitalist scum _-[Current Mission: Strike Fear into Hearts of Capitalist Scum: Leave Message for Local CIA Operative]-_ and was sure a small woolly mammal ought be no different.

But the _eyes_.

Those flat, beady eyes gave the Soldier pause every time the Soldier saw them.

Every time was quite a few times.

The Soldier could not figure out how the sheep kept locating the Soldier; the Soldier employed every trick possible that would leave most covert operatives floundering, but without fail, the sheep would appear as soon as the Soldier was in the area.

The Soldier was 93% certain the sheep was not an enemy operative.

The sheep was distinctly older every time the Soldier appeared, until one day it showed up with a small, young sheep. The smaller sheep leaped around the Soldier and the larger sheep, waving its back legs with such franticness that the Soldier immediately snapped around to sweep the area for intruders.

The only intruders were the sheep.

The next time the Winter Soldier was in the Afghan mountains, only the small (now quite a bit larger) sheep was there. It was just as enthusiastic to see the Soldier as it had been before.

The Soldier was 87% certain this sheep was not an enemy operative.

Those eyes were just as unnerving as the first's.

The Soldier began to actively avoid the immediate area, choosing to return via the other side of the mountain.

This time the sheep brought friends.

The Soldier did not feel much emotion, but the Soldier thought this was what the targets must have felt like as the Soldier stalked them through the city. Hunted.

And then the Wall fell.

And the Soldier was sent to America.

And then Tony Stark was captured. The Soldier was sent to collect Stark and any useful information, then eliminate the Ten Rings cell- HYDRA wanted Stark's mind for its own and the Ten Rings would take the fall.

The Soldier was deployed at late evening, dropped thirty miles west of the located cell so that the dropping sun would blind any casual onlookers in the compound.

The Soldier walked.

The sun was beginning to rise as the Soldier reached the compound, so the Soldier leapt and climbed atop one of the roofs. Targets almost never looked up. By mid-morning, the Soldier had gathered that Stark was being held in one of the inner buildings, near the small, nearly dry spring this compound surrounded. The Soldier would enter the building in the late evening, grab Stark and shoot the Ten Rings leader _-[Target: Raza]-_ and a few others to make the kill look like the result of infighting, and leave under the cover of darkness to the pick-up location.

The Soldier was unable to complete the mission.

When the sun was high in the sky (and the Soldier ignoring the sweat that steadily dripped down and pooled uncomfortably in the collar of the tan camouflage shirt), the explosions started.

The Soldier froze, hunching further down on the roof as a metal figure stepped out the door, firing beams of light from its hands that destroyed as if it were a concentrated explosive blast.

The Soldier rapidly blinked away the sweat dripping into dry eyes and looked again.

The metal figure was still there.

The Soldier lifted the rifle to aim at the glowing thing in the metal man's chest, and hesitated. The metal man was proving ample distraction to collect what the Soldier was sent for. The Soldier put down the gun and slid off the roof. When the metal man became distracted by a group of Ten Rings men firing wildly, the Soldier slipped inside.

The Soldier only found a body _-[Analysis: mid-sixties, Afghan, male, recently deceased; not Target]-_ and some partial blueprints for a missile of some kind, which the Soldier folded and placed in a side pocket.

Had the metal man abducted Stark? Had Stark escaped? The Soldier vetoed each question as it arose. The Soldier's surveillance had been complete.

A small sketch drew the Soldier's attention. It had been penciled in on the corner of a small hand-drawn map of the compound _-[Map: known information, irrelevant. Sketch: metal helmet, likeness of head of metal man, of potential use]-_ The Soldier took that too. Stark was the metal man.

The Soldier went back outside.

The Metal Stark had laid waste to most of the compound; the Soldier dropped to the ground as a nearby building had a wall blown out.

The Soldier followed the Metal Stark around, trying to decide on a course of action to capture the Metal Stark with a greater than 30% chance of success. The Soldier briefly considered shooting out the glowing thing, but it was likely a power source. _-[Result: explosion. Chance of Stark's survival: 0%]-_

Eventually the Metal Stark flew off towards the north. The Soldier catalogued the direction and then began searching the base for _-[Target: Raza]-_

The Soldier found his body thirty minutes later. _-[Pulse: none. Cause of death: high-intensity burns, Metal Stark suit. Time of death: less than an hour.]-_

On the northern side of the village, the Soldier found another body. _-[Analysis: early thirties, Caucasian, male, recently deceased, gunshot wound to head; irrelevant]-_ The Soldier began to move on, but was stopped by a small noise. The body had moved.

The Soldier went back. _-[Pulse: weak. Status of injury: healing.]-_ As the Soldier watched, the fingers of the not-corpse's right hand twitched. The Soldier leaned over, and used a pistol cleaning rod to dig the bullet out, and watched the flesh begin knitting back together.

The Soldier straightened, and slung the body over a shoulder. This was useful information.

The Soldier left the compound behind, trudging northward.

Metal Stark must have veered off and crashed, the Soldier determined some hours later. The beats of a helicopter had been heard fifty minutes ago and left much more quickly than it had arrived, so the Soldier could only conclude that it had found what it had been looking for. And Stark was the only thing of interest here.

The Soldier turned north-east, towards the mountains and the pick-up location. _-[Mission status: information collected, Stark not collected. Course of action: regroup]-_

The sheep appeared as soon as the Soldier began the upward climb on one of the outer mountains. The Soldier startled.

The sheep was not supposed to be on this mountain. The sheep had previously only been found on four mountains farther to the east.

The Soldier was 34% certain this sheep was not an enemy operative. _-[Odds unacceptable. Eliminate threat.]-_ The Soldier carefully placed the body on the ground and drew a gun from a holster.

The sheep bleated at him.

A man's voice sounded out, shouting questioningly. The Soldier dove for cover behind a rock outcrop.

The sheep began to wander over to the Soldier's position, but was distracted by the abandoned body's hair and began to chew on it. An Afghan sheepherder crested the ridge and bent over the body, which stirred and began to talk, the sounds too low for the Soldier to make out from over the distance.

The Soldier put away the gun and drew a knife.

The body sat up, then went lax and fell over, and was caught by the sheepherder. The man shouted something, and several replies were heard, voices growing louder.

The Soldier sheathed the knife and slid away silently. The Soldier could not engage here, not when ordered to remain unnoticed; HYDRA could not be seen as active here.

The Soldier did not encounter the sheep again on the way to the rendezvous.

[_][_][_][_][_][_][_]

Bucky inhaled the dry air as he stepped off the jet. "Afghanistan," he said, rolling the word around in his mouth. "It's pretty. I've never noticed that before."

Stark turned around, arms wide. "Isn't it? I've actually never been in the mountains before. Just the hot, hot desert," he said, mouth wry in a smirk that wasn't quite humorous.

"I wish I'd brought my sketchbook. Watercolors, I think," Steve followed them out.

It'd been a whirlwind trip so far, with little time to think. Stark had come back to give some tech and money to the schools in a small little town called Gulmira, as well as setting up a few scholarships. He never explained why, exactly, just muttered something about a debt owed and then changed the subject with the worst subtlety Bucky'd ever seen. And he'd been in the _Army_. Bucky and Steve were mostly along for the ride, having never been abroad outside of wartime.

So here they were, sightseeing before they flew back to New York. An ex-assassin, Iron Man, and Steve Rogers. Bucky was sure there was a joke in there somewhere, waiting to be made.

He pulled out his new StarkPhone, shoved onto him by Stark himself as he officially moved into the Tower. (He had been living in the Tower for several months previous, hiding from reporters and law enforcers alike, but Steve had insisted on an official celebration once his name had been cleared; Stark had insisted on the booze. Those few hours afterwards Bucky would take to the grave, if only Clint would _stop reminding them_. Clint hadn't exactly been Sober Sally either; Natasha had taped the pictures to the refrigerator and replaced them every time they were taken down.)

But he digressed. The phone was a sleek little thing, thin enough that Bucky was still afraid of accidentally snapping it in half whenever he sat down but with a screen nearly as large as his hand. Fairly useless for actually calling people (his ear still accidentally hit the little red button on occasion, which made for an excellent excuse to hang up on people he didn't like; sometimes it paid to be a nonagenarian), but great for playing Angry Birds and taking pictures.

He took a few of the farther mountains on the horizon and when Tony shoved his phone at him, "Come on RoboCop, take a snap of me and Cap for the Avengers Insta," took a quick selfie instead. The surprised swearing and muffled chuckles made it worth it. There had been a mountain in the background that looked like he was wearing it as a hat. It was the simple things in life, really.

He frowned.

Stark looked up from whatever god-awful caption he was putting on his picture (Bucky was never ever telling him that some had actually made him laugh). "What is it?" Steve looked over, a worried expression tugging over his smile.

Bucky shook his head. "Nothin'. I feel like I should be remembering…" He trailed off. What he didn't remember wasn't necessarily a touchy subject but it was still one he didn't like to bring up much.

A bleat sounded from right behind him. Instinct had him spinning in a crouch, knife out and extended in the next heartbeat.

The large woolly sheep looked up at him with soulfully beady eyes and bleated again.

Stark laughed. "That is one big-ass sheep ass!" He whipped his StarkPhone around and began clicking away.

Bucky frowned deeper. The sheep was still staring at him- hadn't even blinked once- and his instincts were still going haywire over the damn animal.

The sheep bleated again, and answering bleats echoed across the valley.

Steve started forwards, widening eyes focused somewhere behind Bucky. "Oh sh-"

The unpatriotic expletive was lost in a thunder of hooves as Bucky was bowled over by an avalanche of dirty wool and hooves. He lost his grip on his knife in the flood of sheep and came up spitting wool from his mouth. The sheep clustered around his sitting form, butting their heads at him and nosing his face and torso, all the while bleating trumpetingly. The first one looked incredibly smug for a waist-high mammal, Bucky thought resentfully.

Stark was having the time of his life. "Smile, Inspector Gadget! Say hi to the kiddies!" He'd stopped the _click click click_ tapping, so was likely well into a video now.

Bucky scowled up at him right as a particularly strong sheep headbutted his shoulder. Steve's smirk told him that he'd never he able to live down the resulting flail.

He was right. Sam was absolutely delighted.

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